


PREFECT

by unknowableroom_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-15
Updated: 2010-02-04
Packaged: 2019-01-19 21:34:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12418614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknowableroom_archivist/pseuds/unknowableroom_archivist
Summary: Power, a title, privileges, the favor of the Headmaster, the prestige of being one of the top eight students in your year…the responsibility of being the leader and the killjoy of your house, the demands of extra work, the resentment of those who should be your friends…but one hell of a resume.  Acronym drabbles continue.





	1. P ower over Potter

**Author's Note:**

> Note from ChristyCorr, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Unknowable Room](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Unknowable_Room), a Harry Potter archive active from 2005-2016. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after May 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Unknowable Room collection profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/collections/unknowableroom).

It’s not quite enough, after the Inquisitorial Squad.  And he never did get to put Potter in a detention.  In the end, it wasn’t so great being a prefect.  Sure, a nice bathroom and the ability to dole out detention, but Granger seemed even quicker to end his quarrels with Potter and Weasley now, and he was quite well aware that it was still only with Professor Snape that his word was better than Potter’s.

Even the Headmistress who had been on his side, rather than blind to any fault in his nemesis, was still obsessed with Potter and cared only about how Draco could help to break him.

It should have been one of the great moments of his school career when he saw that Potter hadn’t been made a prefect – and that he had.  Potter, Dumbledore’s pet, wasn’t trusted to lead his House and carry their respect and the great Headmaster’s upon his chest like Draco Malfoy was.

So why didn’t the effect seem to work?  Potter led his House more than ever that year, and the Slytherins thought Draco was puffed up with his own importance.  Even the Inquisitorial Squad didn’t disperse, gather or attack with the responsiveness of Potter’s little army, and Draco couldn’t recruit helpers in sixth year without resorting to the Imperius Curse or alienating Crabbe beyond repair.

Scar apparently trumped prefect badge.  Or was it just that Gryffindors were waiting to be led by a likely hero, and Slytherins preferred to go their own way?  If there was ever a House that didn’t need prefects, it was Slytherin.  It was an empty title there, behavior ingrained and expected, ranking according to birthright - and nothing a Headmaster inserted into the equation.  It was almost Gryffindorish of him to think that it was so important.  Perhaps that was why it bothered him so much, yet he still felt a kind of dark pride that he at least knew that it was a useless bit of silver.


	2. R espect

Everyone thought that Percy Weasley took it for granted that the title of prefect gave him instant respect.

He lived with _Fred and George_.  They could knock that notion out of anyone.  A popular prefect was a rare thing – them being the ones assigned to tell the other students to behave themselves.  But then, Percy couldn’t quite shake the thought that when Bill and Charlie had been prefects they had still been enormously popular.

Well, Charlie was also a champion Seeker, but what did Bill have that Percy lacked?  So that “prefect” didn’t get him the same kind of respect that it had gotten his older brother?

When he first got the badge, he thought his days of being “that git Percy” were over.  Now he would have the authority to help people, to stop them from doing something silly and destructive, and they would respect his authority – and him – for caring about them rather than tell him to butt out.  Because it _was_ his business if he was a prefect...

But, of course, the twins lead the way in making him an object of contempt, and everyone seems only more annoyed with his attempts to be of use after he has the badge proudly displayed on his robes.  He thinks, perhaps, it’s not noticeable, so he mentions it.  This just makes it worse.  What is he doing wrong?  Bill and Charlie were always so popular, respected as prefects and leaders of Gryffindor.  This was supposed to make Percy…respected…liked…

Perhaps if he was Head Boy…


	3. E xpectations

At first, Remus Lupin did actually try.  He wasn’t sure if Dumbledore or McGonagall had actually expected that.  Probably no one else did.  The Marauders certainly hadn’t.  They had, in fact, rather looked forward to having a prefect on their side for once.  
  
But then Peter finally managed the Transformation, and they all insisted on accompanying him to the Whomping Willow and they sat with him in the Shrieking Shack all that long night long.  And he found it helped him to keep his mind, helped him to stay at least in some part human even as his teeth grew into monstrous fangs and his back bent into the crouch of a wolf.  
  
So eventually they started roaming abroad, and the Full Moon became, unbelievably, an amazing time each month.  The best times of his life.  Instead of imprisoned in his own body, he felt free under the silver light spilling down between the trees.  
  
After that – after that gift that came of breaking more school rules than he could count – could he really be expected to tell them to shut up in class?


	4. F amily pride

“Erm – Harry – could I borrow Hedwig so I can tell Mum and Dad?They’ll be really pleased – I mean _prefect_ is something they can understand.”

Hermione was embarrassed for a moment after she’d said it.Luckily, Harry seemed too disappointed to notice her discomfort, or the amount of information she had just revealed.Harry seemed to take pleasure in the Dursleys inability to understand his new life, so he would never understand what it cost Hermione that her parents were little better at it.

 

Prefect.Just like Dad.We’re so proud of you.

She always hoped they would say that to her someday, long before magic.  Long before Hogwarts and the Boy Who Lived.

 

Something to put in her ever shrinking letters home – gossip about rounds and trying to keep order.Her dad wrote back advice from his days, and they had something real to discuss.Something to show them when she arrived for her brief holiday – a prefect badge, something that looked just like what it was.Dad showed her his and told her to keep it as a reminder of her family's history keeping the peace and leading whatever school, and he had something to pass on to her.

 

Her father spent much of his year in Australia looking for his lost prefect badge, which Hermione kept in the inside pocket of her clutch.She had left that piece of their shared history in her father’s mind and spent her spare time touching the object she knew he would miss, pretending she hadn’t erased herself from their minds and lives, that he was missing her deep down inside, just like the prefect badge that disappeared in the move.

 

Prefect, something they would recognize, when they would never understand so many things she did.


End file.
